1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device provided with a speaker for outputting sound information.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, downsizing of electronic devices have been advanced, and various portable electronic devices capable of displaying images using a flat display and reproducing sounds have been developed. These portable electronic devices include a thin, flat main body portion for portability, and a display panel for displaying image information is provided in the main body portion or in a display portion attached turnably to the main body portion.
In such portable electronic devices, an image display area of the display panel is required to be made as large as possible while the device itself is required to be downsized. Because of this, when the display panel is provided in a display portion of a housing that is different from the main body portion, a speaker for outputting sound information often is not arranged in the display portion, but within the main body portion in order to reduce a ratio of a so-called frame area (a size of a non-display portion) to a surface area of the housing, except a case where the application limits an arrangement position of the speaker (e.g., mobile telephones). Further, when the display panel is provided in the main body portion, the speaker often is arranged in the vicinity of the display panel within a main face of the main body portion where the display panel is arranged.
FIG. 5 shows the appearance of an information processing terminal capable of displaying image information and outputting sound information, as an example of a conventional portable electronic device.
A conventional information processing terminal 500 shown in FIG. 5 includes a terminal main body portion 501 that is thin and flat in a thickness direction and a display panel 502. Specifically, in the center of the right and left directions of a main face 501a of the terminal main body portion 501, there are the display panel 502 with a touch panel for displaying image and inputting information, and a plurality of input keys 503 for performing various operations such as ON/OFF of other power sources.
Speaker portions 504 are arranged at the right and left end portions of the main face 501a of the main body portion 501. In the example shown in FIG. 5, two each of speakers 505 are contained in the right and left speaker portions 504, whose surface portions are covered with speaker meshes. In order to correspond to the reduction in thickness of the main body portion 501, each speaker 505 is arranged such that an opening face of a cone portion is parallel to the main face 501a of the main body portion 501.
Further, in order to keep the main face 501a at an angle comfortable for a user when the information processing terminal 500 is mounted on a mounting base such as a table, a stand 506 that can fold during storage is arranged on a back face side of the terminal main body portion 501 (see JP 2003-050642 A).
In the information processing terminal 500 described in the above publication, in order to realize the reproduction of sound information with high quality while ensuring portability, the speakers 505 are used whose opening face of the cone portion has a relatively large diameter, and a large volume is allocated for the speaker portions 504 for containing the speakers 505.
However, except for electronic devices that are dedicated to reproducing music media and required to reproduce sound information with especially high quality, general portable electronic devices preferentially are required to reproduce video information in a large screen and to be downsized as a whole, as long as they can reproduce sounds with quality at a specific minimum level. Therefore, downsizing of speakers in the portable electronic devices is inevitable, which makes it difficult to increase a volume of a speaker arrangement portion just for reproducing sound information with high quality.